If you want to know why young people are turning to socialism, look at Paul Ryan's tone-deaf conservative nonprofit

Ryan is not the hero he thinks himself to be

The kind of America Paul Ryan wants is the kind of America young people want to change (EPA)

This week, Paul Ryan announced a new non-profit initiative. Called the American Idea Foundation, the group’s stated goal is to “fight poverty, increase economic opportunity, and advance evidence based public policies”, which the press release claims were the cornerstone values of Paul Ryan’s political career.

I recall Paul Ryan’s congressional tenure quite differently.

In the 20 years Ryan spent in Congress, he championed plans, policies, and programs that actively disenfranchised poor people, including reducing and restricting safety net programs.

After a literal “poverty tour” in 2014, he still moved to cut access to food stamps. He and other Republicans attempted to cut access to healthcare via Medicare and Medicaid for thousands of poor and elderly Americans. Ryan also had a horrible record on gay civil rights, opposing gay adoption and voting ‘yes’ on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. He voted to ban federal healthcare coverage that included abortion provision.

Now, struggling working class people are supposed to look to Paul Ryan and the American Idea Foundation to privately help undo the damage he, as a legislator, helped cause? I certainly wouldn’t trust that.

Paul Ryan is not the hero he thinks himself to be. From including primarily black people in his non-profit launch ad, which is in no way an accurate representation of poverty in West Virginia, to taking food off the table of poor families, he reads more like a bad, slightly racist cartoon villain preventing good citizens from accessing food, healthcare, and safety. Indeed, people have never really liked Paul Ryan, as evidenced by low favorability ratings throughout his career.

What Paul Ryan, the Republicans, and those who support them fail to understand is that people who cannot afford education, healthcare, or safe housing have no potential for what he refers to as “economic opportunity”. You cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you have no boots.

Ryan wants to maintain our broken system of capitalism instead of overhauling it, knowing that under American capitalism poverty, homelessness, and healthcare inaccessibility will continue to be an issue. His non-profit is a band-aid solution to a problem caused by his past economic policymaking.

A recent YouGov poll recently found that nearly half of all millennials and Gen-Z’ers have an unfavorable view of capitalism. The same poll found that 7 out of 10 millennials would consider voting for a socialist.

If you’ve struggled to understand why Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the rest of “The Squad” appeal to young people, it’s because millennials are spending all their money on rent, can’t afford routine healthcare, and are drowning in student debt. Many young people are trapped in a capitalist system that doesn’t feel sustainable, and democratic socialism offers a way out of that cycle.

Ryan may well believe that his American Ideas Foundation is going to help people get back on their feet, and I don’t doubt it will help some people. But at the same time, if his nonprofit upholds Republican values and rejects the growing trend of democratic socialism, it will continue to support the system that creates the very economic inequality that Ryan claims to reject.

We tried the Republican way, and all that we saw were shrinking safety nets for those who needed them. Instead of private help, working class people would sooner vote for their interests: accessible healthcare, housing, and education. Only one plan addresses the root issue of poverty, and it's not the one that promises “economic opportunity” over genuine equity.